#Canada

A revamped version of a compact Lexus crossover that’s seen a fair bit of exposure on these digital pages will begin assembly in Ontario starting in early 2022, Toyota Canada has announced.

We knew some sort of product announcement was scheduled to take place today after the automaker’s Canadian arm stopped and shook everyone in sight last week, eager to signal its committed to maintaining a presence in the snowy country north of Buffalo. The Lexus NX is that product, Toyota says, with Canadian production replacing Japanese output.

For Canucks fearful that their fragile auto industry will one day disappear, the addition of a new crossover — a vehicle type seemingly without a sales ceiling — is a reassuring balm.

Toyota dropped a big hint this week that new product might be on its way to the Great White North, saying an announcement will be made Monday that “will serve to further reaffirm Toyota’s commitment to manufacturing in Canada.”

The automaker operates three assembly plants in southwest Ontario, with the Cambridge North facility tapped for next week’s big news. Bloomberg seems eager to kill the suspense, however, with plugged-in sources telling the publication that two Lexus crossovers stand to join the company’s Canuck assembly scene.

If confirmed, it’s good news for a country facing a doomed General Motors plant and a dropped shift at Fiat Chrysler’s Windsor minivan plant.

Union officials in Windsor, Ontario were blindsided Thursday afternoon by Fiat Chrysler’s announcement of job cuts at the company’s minivan plant. The automaker plans to cut a third shift at the plant, home to the Dodge Grand Caravan and Chrysler Pacifica, putting 1,500 out of work.

It will be the first time the plant has operated on two shifts since the early 1990s. According to properly pissed Unifor officials, lackluster Pacifica sales may be to blame for the move.

That headline was originally typed as “government cash,” except that wouldn’t be quite accurate, would it? Canada’s federal government tabled its budget Tuesday, and within those dry, dry pages was a helping hand for the struggling electric vehicle segment. While two of the country’s 10 provinces offer their own EV rebates (Ontario used to pony up a princely sum until a change in government last year saw the program kiboshed), there was never a federal program to stimulate the sale of green vehicles.

How does $5,000 pooled from your friends and neighbors sound? Good? Hold your horses, Tesla fans. You don’t apply.

Ontario Labor Relations Board Chairman Bernard Fishbein recently ruled that Unifor’s actions over the winter were illegal under the province’s Labor Relations Act, stipulating that the union must “cease and desist from engaging in, authorizing or counseling unlawful strikes or engaging in any act that is likely to cause employees at the Inteva, Lear or GM plant (or any other supplier of the GM plant) or any employees having notice of this decision to engage in any unlawful strike.”

However, Unifor President Jerry Dias says the board’s finding that the union engaged in unlawful strikes against General Motors and its suppliers will not stop its workers from walking off the job in the future.

The Ontario government isn’t pleased with Unifor’s handling of General Motors’ decision to close Oshawa Car Assembly. Like the UAW, Canada’s autoworker union has been extremely vocal in its opposition to GM’s restructuring plan. Over the last few months Unifor members have picketed, held multiple rallies, protested the automaker during the North American International Auto Show, called for a boycott, and aired commercials condemning the manufacturer during the Super Bowl.

Todd Smith, Ontario’s minister of economic development, job creation and trade, believes all of this has been detrimental to future business investment. “The Unifor message hasn’t been helpful, not just for General Motors but the auto industry in Ontario,” he said during the Automotive News Canada Congress in Toronto.

General Motors’ decision to stop the flow of product to Ontario’s Oshawa Assembly plant by the end of 2019 has the province’s government promising cash and a slew of measures to keep the auto industry alive north of the border.

Ontario holds the bulk of Canada’s auto-related manufacturing jobs, with the sector adding up to nearly one-fifth of the province’s manufacturing GDP. Vehicles and parts made up 28 percent of its trade exports in 2015. On Thursday, the Ontario government rolled out the first phase of a 10-year plan to firm up the industry and make automakers reconsider Mexican investment.

There’s more than just differing levels of enthusiasm for the letter “u” separating Americans from their Canadian neighbors. There’s a powertrain divide, too, and in no vehicle line is this more apparent than in Mazda’s new 3 compact sedan and hatch.

You read the first drive review on Monday, and some of you perhaps recoiled a bit after seeing the starting price for a 2019 3 sedan, inflated due to a greater level of standard content, a singular (formerly uplevel) engine, and the lack of a manual transmission in all but one bodystyle and trim. It’s possible the latter change ruffled a few more feathers.

Well, head across the border and you’ll feel none of these concerns. The 3 offered by Mazda Canada casts a far wider net, inviting all comers, though the company insists it hasn’t left its premium aspirations behind.

Two days after blockading roads leading to General Motors’ Canadian headquarters, autoworkers union Unifor rolled out an invisible wall to be placed between Canadians and GM vehicles built south of the Rio Grande.

The union’s call to boycott Mexican-made GM products doesn’t come as a surprise; Unifor president Jerry Dias threatened it in the past as a way of prodding corporate bosses in Detroit to keep the century-old Oshawa, Ontario assembly plant open. With the union now escalating its protest action, the boycott call is out. GM Canada isn’t happy about it, claiming it will only end up hurting Canadian workers.

Can you be pulled over and ordered to blow into a breathalyzer, under threat of arrest, for the simple act of returning empty liquor bottles in the middle of the day? Sure can, at least if you’re living north of the border. It happened to a 70-year-old man in Mississauga, Ontario last weekend.

As part of a massive package of laws enacted in mid-December, Canadian drivers are waking up to the knowledge that the legal standard of “reasonable suspicion” no longer exists when it comes to interactions with the police — at least when pertaining to the combination of alcohol and motor vehicles.

This week, they’re learning it’s possible to face a drunk driving charge, even if you only started drinking after you got home.

As our previous story detailed, new car buyers are leaving the passenger car market in droves, so it’s not surprising to see automakers getting up and leaving the party. General Motors capped off 2018 by announcing its intention to drop six car models, leaving the fate of its remaining sedans and hatches in question.

North of the border, it seems a seventh model has disappeared before the other six even got a chance to get their coats and boots on. According to GM Authority, citing multiple sources familiar with GM’s operations, the Chevrolet Sonic’s life has come to an end in Canada. How long will it last in its home country of the United States?

Barely a day goes by when the TTAC chatroom doesn’t devolve into a discussion of the weird differences between the U.S. and Canada. Chris Tonn wants to take a Nissan Micra across Canada, eating various poutines along the way, while this writer drools over certain (unavailable) civil liberties offered just 45 minutes to his south. Vast gulfs in pricing and taxation usually spring up as topic fodder, too.

Given the amount of money yours truly forks over for gas, there’s additional drool reserved for U.S. pump prices. Various taxes heap, on average, an extra 38 cents on every liter of unleaded up here. That’s an extra $1.44 for each gallon, and the roads aren’t exactly paved in gold.

Now, imagine learning you’ve been paying way too much for three straight years.

It took years, but Fiat Chrysler Automobiles finally unburdened itself from the weight of an unpaid loan by waiting until the government grew tired and gave up. Not that the automaker’s pursuer ever expected to recoup the cash.

It was revealed this week that Canada, which sunk nearly $14 billion into General Motors and Chrysler during the depths of the recession, quietly wrote off a $2.6 billion (CAD) loan made to Chrysler in 2009. It’s not the last bit of money owed to that country’s government by the two automakers, but it is a major outstanding chunk. In its defence, the feds didn’t have a hope in hell of getting the loan repaid, as the company that received it no longer exists.

Marijuana seems to be a reoccurring theme this month. Canada, which legalized recreational use of the drug on Wednesday, has already had an opportunity to remind its citizenry that there are still some ground rules that must be followed. Literally one hour after weed received the green light, Winnipeg police issued a citation for consumption of cannabis inside a motor vehicle.

Last week, we described the difficulties Canuck police will face when attempting to prove someone is driving under the influence of the herb. However, the country’s updated rules mean cops don’t actually need to prove you were driving at all. Simply having it in the cabin is enough to get you slapped with a minor infraction.

Following some furious 11th hour bargaining, Canada reached an agreement with U.S. trade negotiators Sunday night, marking the end of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the creation of its successor, the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. USMCA, for short.

While some of the finer details have yet to be released, the trilateral trade deal prevents the nightmare scenario of heavy tariffs levied on vehicles imported from Canada. To keep General Motors, Fiat Chrysler, Ford, Honda, and Toyota plants humming, officials in the Great White North reluctantly offered up some milk and cheese.